e with a spoon. Soft drink manufacturers, for example, not only are responsible for developing the syrup that determines the taste of their product, they also design the bottles or cans in which the product is delivered (Theodore 49).
The distribution question refers to where the product or service will be available. Some end users do not buy products directly from the manufacturer; this is the case with most consumer goods in the United States where distributors and retailers buy products before they are offered to the consumer. Depending on who the customer is, and the distribution channel used to reach the customer, companies find that they have to have different marketing strategies. Some companies which are ultimately concerned with selling to the public but which do so through intermediaries, find that they must work closely with their distributors in order to build a strong customer base (Kaelble 10).
Promotion is a key part of the marketing mix since it is through promotional activities that consumers learn of the product and the product's brand. Promotion includes most marketing communication activities, and includes advertising, public relations and point of purchase activities. Personal selling, when it is used, is also part of the promotional strategy. Companies typically follow more than a single promotional strategy even for a single product in order to reach various target markets (Kanso and Nelson 83).
The last component of the marketing mix, price, involves setting a price which enables the company to make a profit but which also goes toward establishing (or maintaining) a particular image for a product or service. This helps to explain the widely different prices for items in the same product category such as automobiles: while there is some relationship between the price of a car and the amount that it costs to produce, the greater relationship is between the price of the car and the image which th...